As Default Rates on Borrowing for Higher Education Rise, Some Borrowers See No Way Out; ‘This Is Just Outrageous Now’
When Michelle Bisutti, a 41-year-old family practitioner in Columbus, Ohio, finished medical school in 2003, her student-loan debt amounted to roughly $250,000. Since then, it has ballooned to $555,000.
It is the result of her deferring loan payments while she completed her residency, default charges and relentlessly compounding interest rates. Among the charges: a single $53,870 fee for when her loan was turned over to a collection agency.
“Maybe half of it was my fault because I didn’t look at the fine print,” Dr. Bisutti says. “But this is just outrageous now.”
Black churches spread gospel of higher education
The pulpit at many black churches has become a place to pray to a higher power – and praise higher learning.
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of the dream of reaching the promised land- with education!” cried the man addressing the congregation Sunday at Greater St. John Missionary Baptist Church in West Oakland.
The words came not from the pastor, but from the president of California State University East Bay, Mo Qayoumi, whose remarks were also carried live on KDYA the Light, a gospel radio station.
On Sundays throughout February, Qayoumi and other university leaders are fanning out to more than 100 black churches across the state to spread the gospel of higher education in a program they call Super Sunday.
They’re aiming their message mainly at the families of middle-school children, preaching the idea that it’s never too early to prepare for college.
To make school food healthy, Michelle Obama has a tall order
First lady Michelle Obama’s new campaign against childhood obesity, dubbed “Let’s Move,” puts improvements to school food at the top of the agenda. Some 31 million children participate in federal school meal programs, Obama noted in announcing her initiative last week, “and what we don’t want is a situation where parents are taking all the right steps at home — and then their kids undo all that work with salty, fatty food in the school cafeteria,” she explained. “So let’s move to get healthier food into our nation’s schools.”
Last month I had a chance to see up close what all the school food fuss was about when I spent a week in the kitchen of my 10-year-old daughter’s public school, H.D. Cooke Elementary, in Northwest D.C. Chartwells, the company contracted by the city to provide meals to the District’s schools, had switched in the fall from serving warm-up meals prepackaged in a factory to food it called “fresh cooked,” and I couldn’t wait to chronicle in my food blog how my daughter’s school meals were being prepared from scratch.
Retired Army officer’s new mission: D.C. public schools
Anthony J. Tata was an Army brigadier general in northeast Afghanistan’s Kunar Province in April 2006 when a Taliban rocket slammed into a primary school in Asadabad, killing seven children and wounding 34.
The vicious attack and others like it by the Taliban left him with a thought: “It struck me at the time that if the enemy of my enemy is education, then perhaps that’s a second act for me.”
Three years later, Tata began his second act by accepting Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee’s offer to become chief operating officer for D.C. public schools, a newly created post that places him in charge of purchasing, food service, technology and other support areas.
After a 28-year career that took him to Kosovo, Macedonia, Panama, the Philippines and the international agency charged with thwarting improvised explosive devices, Tata’s mission is to help bring the District’s notorious school bureaucracy to heel.
Brent Elementary principal Cheryl Wilhoyte was mentioned in this article. Wilhoyte is a former Superintendent of the Madison School District.
Going to school on Madison schools
TheDailyPage.com partnered with UW-Madison Prof. Sue Robinson’s graduate journalism class during the fall semester to report on some of the challenges facing the Madison Metropolitan School District. The following are the resulting stories, focusing on the entire district as well as on each level; elementary, middle schools and high schools.
Utah considers cutting 12th grade — altogether
The proposal by state Sen. Chris Buttars would chip away at Utah’s $700-million shortfall. He’s since offered a toned-down version: Just make senior year optional.
Reporting from Denver – At Utah’s West Jordan High School, the halls have swirled lately with debate over the merits of 12th grade:
Is it a waste of time? Are students ready for the real world at 17?
For student body president J.D. Williams, 18, the answer to both questions is a resounding no. “I need this year,” he said, adding that most of his classmates feel the same way.
The sudden buzz over the relative value of senior year stems from a recent proposal by state Sen. Chris Buttars that Utah make a dent in its budget gap by eliminating the 12th grade.
A good idea.
Covington’s bold Kansas City school-closing plan
Congratulations to Kansas City School District Superintendent John Covington.
He’s just take the courageous and correct step of saying the district needs to shutter more than two dozen schools in the ever-shrinking district.
From 74,000 students about 40 years ago to 17,000 now, the district has no reason to continue to operate so many buildings at less than 50 percent capacity.
Covington, however, also must get rid of a proportionate number of administrators at the downtown office building, which has been bloated with staff for many years.
If more than 200 teachers are going to receive pink slips in closed buildings, the downtown administrators should share in the pain.
Read The Star story, which includes other aspects of Covington’s proposal.
Related: Money And School Performance:
Lessons from the Kansas City Desegregation Experiment:
or decades critics of the public schools have been saying, “You can’t solve educational problems by throwing money at them.” The education establishment and its supporters have replied, “No one’s ever tried.” In Kansas City they did try. To improve the education of black students and encourage desegregation, a federal judge invited the Kansas City, Missouri, School District to come up with a cost-is-no-object educational plan and ordered local and state taxpayers to find the money to pay for it.
Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil–more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. The money bought higher teachers’ salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country.
The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration.
The Kansas City experiment suggests that, indeed, educational problems can’t be solved by throwing money at them, that the structural problems of our current educational system are far more important than a lack of material resources, and that the focus on desegregation diverted attention from the real problem, low achievement.
Former Madison School District Superintendent Art Rainwater served in Kansas City prior to his time in Madison.
This is rather astonishing, given the amount of money spent in Kansas City.
Why we need another great education debate
The emphasis on league tables does not encourage young people to learn to think for themselves
It is nearly 35 years since James Callaghan gave his speech in 1976 at Ruskin College, Oxford, calling for a “great debate” on education to address the disappointing performance of far too many children. From the Ruskin speech flowed a greater involvement of government in state education and the founding of the national curriculum 10 years later.
The years after 1976 have seen school teaching change beyond recognition. The curriculum has become more uniform, inspection is much tighter and more prescriptive, and targets and league tables are the principal drivers of school improvement. Lazy teachers and ineffective schools have been tackled under this centralising imperative.
However, concerns are now heard that the new focus on league tables is narrowing the quality and breadth of education. Universities and employers often feel that schools are very effective in instructing their pupils in how to get top marks, but are less impressive at teaching them how to think.
Maryland School Reform Baby Steps
A report that Maryland students ranked first in the nation in the percentages of high school seniors taking and passing Advanced Placement exams comes just as Gov. Martin O’Malley is set to announce his legislative proposals for making the state more competitive for millions of dollars in new federal education funds. But it’s too early for congratulations just yet. Maryland’s high ranking on the AP exams masks glaring disparities between the state’s best- and worst-performing school districts, and the legislative package the governor is proposing will need to be scrutinized closely on key elements, notably those involving charter schools, where the state still needs to demonstrate its commitment to education reform.
It’s a sign of definite progress that Governor O’Malley, who recently bristled at the notion that Maryland was ill-prepared to compete for federal school dollars under the nationwide Race to the Top program, has been working with teachers unions in recent weeks to get their agreement on legislation to reform the state’s educational system.
The governor’s package would extend the minimum time teachers are required to serve before being awarded tenure from two years to three, a change that would bring Maryland more in line with the rest of the nation; 38 states already require teachers to work at least three years before getting tenure, and eight states require more than that.
L.A. Unified may cut school year by 6 days
Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines proposed Friday cutting six days from the school year to help reduce an estimated $640-million deficit and avoid the need for widespread layoffs in the nation’s second-largest school system.
The move, announced by news release Friday evening, would save the district $90 million and could spare up to 5,000 jobs, Cortines said. The alternative to this drastic action, he said, would be to let the district go bankrupt.
“Do I think [this] is good education policy? No,” he said. “But we are in a real crisis.”
Cortines has repeatedly said that he did not want to shorten the school year. This is the first time in recent history that a Los Angeles school superintendent has made such a suggestion.
CRCT scandal tests Atlanta school superintendent’s image
Heather Vogell and Kristina Torres:
Superintendent Beverly Hall told a national audience of educators about Atlanta schools’ steady strides forward at a conference in Phoenix Wednesday.
But back home that same day, Georgia officials were unveiling findings that call into question how much of that progress was real.
Hall is at the high point of her career, basking in national accolades for a dramatic turnaround of the city’s schools — with rising state test scores cited as key evidence. Those scores are suddenly in doubt.
More than two-thirds of Atlanta’s public elementary and middle schools face investigations into cheating after the state unveiled a statewide analysis of suspicious erasures on standardized tests. Atlanta had more schools flagged than any other district. In one school, nearly 90 percent of classrooms are under scrutiny.
In English-Crazy China, 8D World Teaches Kids To Speak In Virtual Worlds; Lands A Deal With CCTV
In China, learning spoken English is giving rise to a huge and growing market. For instance, in addition to English classes in public schools, parents send their children to about 50,000 for-profit training schools around the country, where English is the most popular subject. Instead of American Idol, on CCTV, the national government-owned TV network, they have the Star of Outlook English Talent Competition. This is possibly the largest nationwide competition in China. Last year, 400,000 students between the ages of 6 and 14 took part in it.
This year, the competition is adding a virtual twist, and a startup based in Massachusetts called 8D World is at the center of it. 8D World runs a virtual world called Wiz World Online for Chinese-speaking kids who want to learn English. In what is a huge coup for the startup, this year’s CCTV English competition will use Wiz World Online as its official training and competition platform. Wiz World will be used to screen contestants and will be promoted to millions of Chinese viewers.
Recession ‘hits private school’
BBC:
Another small private school has been closed because of falling roll numbers its owners say are linked to the recession.
Cliff School in Wakefield, ran by private school chain the Alpha Plus Group, is closing the school in July.
Pupil numbers are said to have fallen from 180 to 134 making its long term future unsustainable.
It is one of 21 small independent schools reported to have closed or been merged since January 2009.
Last week another small school in Sheffield, Brantwood School, said it would be closing unless additional funds could be found.
Honored teacher added to Milwaukee Public Schools casualty list
Seventeen days ago, Jessica Deibel stood in front of the Milwaukee School Board, accepting praise for her accomplishments. Superintendent William Andrekopoulos gave her a plaque. Each board member shook her hand.
Deibel and only seven other teachers in Milwaukee Public Schools were recognized for receiving in the past year national board certification, a prestigious credential for teachers.
Congratulations, Ms. Deibel. And now you’re going to be bounced out of your job.
The school you love – where you send your own children – is taking it on the chin as the financial picture of MPS takes major steps into deeper financial distress. The staff will shrink at this little school where student achievement exceeds city averages by wide margins. Class size will go up sharply. Time with music, art and gym teachers will be reduced or eliminated.
Even with your new certification, the product of months of work, you have the least seniority in this small school and you will be the first one required to leave, Ms. Deibel.
“It was kind of like a slap in the face,” Deibel said of the recognition at the School Board meeting. “Here’s your reward, but you can’t stay here.”
Covington calls for closing up to 31 schools
Kansas City Superintendent John Covington this afternoon unveiled his sweeping plan to close half of the district’s schools, redistribute grade levels and sell the downtown central office.
Covington presented his proposal to the school board in advance of a series of forums next week where the community will get to weigh in on what would be the largest swath of closures in district history, as well as a major reorganization.
“Folks, it’s going to hurt,” Covington told an overflow audience. “It’s going to be painful, but if we work together, we’re going to get through it.”
Covington wants to be able to complete the public debate and present a final plan for a vote by the board at its Feb. 24 meeting.
The board and the community have a lot to digest over the next 10 days.
The proposal calls for:
•29 to 31 of the district’s 60 schools would close, including Westport High and Central Middle.
Related: Money And School Performance: Lessons from the Kansas City Desegregation Experiment:
For decades critics of the public schools have been saying, “You can’t solve educational problems by throwing money at them.” The education establishment and its supporters have replied, “No one’s ever tried.” In Kansas City they did try. To improve the education of black students and encourage desegregation, a federal judge invited the Kansas City, Missouri, School District to come up with a cost-is-no-object educational plan and ordered local and state taxpayers to find the money to pay for it.
Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil–more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. The money bought higher teachers’ salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country.
The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration.
The Kansas City experiment suggests that, indeed, educational problems can’t be solved by throwing money at them, that the structural problems of our current educational system are far more important than a lack of material resources, and that the focus on desegregation diverted attention from the real problem, low achievement.
Former Madison School District Superintendent Art Rainwater served in Kansas City prior to his time in Madison.
This is rather astonishing, given the amount of money spent in Kansas City.
Education on the mind of small business owners
What is the biggest issue facing the Milwaukee-area business community?
It might surprise many to hear that several small business owners believe it is the area’s education system, specifically the Milwaukee Public Schools.
“The state of education in the region is a huge issue for all of us,” said Nancy Hernandez, owner of Abrazo Multicultural Marketing, Milwaukee. “We’ve faced issues for a number of years. We have to set aside the politics and deal with the issues. It is important to the future of our community.”
RI school district to fire high school teachers
The superintendent of the Central Falls schools says she will fire every teacher at the high school after they refused to accept a reform plan.
The plan was offered under a state mandate to fix the school, which has among Rhode Island’s worst test scores and graduation rates.
The plan included six conditions such as adding 25 minutes to the day and providing tutoring outside school hours.
The added work didn’t come with much extra pay and the teachers union refused to accept it.
Superintendent Frances Gallo blasted the union’s “callous disregard” for the situation. She said the school’s 74 teachers will be fired, effective next school year.
Teach every child about food
Jamie Oliver:
HISD board approves extended school year
KHOU:
Houston Independent School District board members voted unanimously Thursday to extend the school year, and also approved applying tougher penalties for under-performing teachers.
The policy will extend HISD’s school year from 175 days to 190 days. The school year would be spread out more, beginning on August 23 and ending July 28. That means students will have a shorter summer and winter break.
Superintendent Terry Grier said the new plan will start this fall. As it stands right now, each school has the option to adopt the policy.
Nelly White, a parent, said she thinks it’s a good idea.
“It’s a good opportunity for the students, because they wouldn’t forget what they learned over the summer,” she said. “Sometimes when they come back to school they have to repeat everything they already learned.”
Politicians and Pundits Respond to New Jersey Governor Christie’s Education Cuts
Senate Majority Leader Barbara Buono on Gov. Christie’s plan to force school districts to use surpluses in lieu of state aid when that money would typically go back to residents in the form of property tax relief: “It’s a solution to the budget crisis that falls disproportionately on the backs of middle-class homeowners, which is something I can’t support.”
Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney: “So much for a handshake. Governing by executive order and keeping plans secret until the last minute is not bipartisanship.”Assembly Education Committee Chairman Patrick J. Diegnan, Jr. on Christie’s plans to cut state aid to schools: “Democrats were able last year to increase school aid even as we slashed the state budget, so Gov. Christie’s plan to cut resources for our schools and children is the wrong approach for our state. New Jerseyans have long had a shared commitment to the nearly 1.5 million children in our public schools, but Gov. Christie’s approach steers us in a different direction.”
What’s Ahead for No Child Left Behind?
During the recent National School Boards Association conference in Washington, D.C., U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan talked about revising the “No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.”
Such reforms could change the school accountability measures that we have had in public education for nearly a decade. Under “No Child Left Behind,” individual school progress is determined by student achievement on reading and math tests.
These tests are different in each state, based on state standards and linked to statewide curriculum. Tests are used to identify achievement gaps among groups and evaluate schools based on annual testing of all students who must show proficiency in reading and math by 2014.
“No Child Left Behind” legislation expired in 2007-08. Congress kept the measure going by approving annual appropriations for K-12 education. However, in 2010, the Obama administration is asking Congress for reauthorization, not of the “No Child Left Behind Act,” but of the “Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.”
Detroit Public Schools challenged by high-quality charter schools From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20100211/OPINION01/2110342/Editorial–Detroit-Public-Schools-challenged-by-high-quality-charter-schools#ixzz0fNPgbPTI
The evolution of charter schools and education in Detroit is no more sharply illustrated than by these facts: It was Gov. Jennifer Granholm who went to Houston to convince the phenomenally successful YES academies to open a school in Detroit, and it was the Detroit Public Schools that sold YES the school building where it will begin holding classes this fall.
Six years ago, Granholm stood in the schoolhouse door with the Detroit Federation of Teachers and said no to an expansion of charters in the city. Since then, the high performance of the city’s best charter schools, the continued deterioration of the Detroit Public Schools and the demand from parents for alternative education choices has changed attitudes about charters. DPS, under the leadership of Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb, now welcomes the competition from charters as an impetus to improve its schools.
In fact, Bobb sold YES the old Winship Elementary School on the city’s northwest side to use as a home for the new academy, serving grades 6-12.
Washington’s best winter ever
Sometime yesterday afternoon — I wasn’t watching the clock for reasons that will soon be apparent — I heard a local TV news anchor announce that this was the “worst winter in Washington history.” I was in bed at the time, taking one of the nice naps that have become part of my routine during the succession of storms that have kept me home since last Friday.
My thought: Is “worst” really the right adjective?
I realize that we have had more snow than ever before. I know that many people are isolated in homes without heat or power, or are struggling to get to work, or are being tortured by whiny kids whose schools are closed. I sympathize with all of you. I feel your pain. I have been in your situation a few times in the past.
But can’t we, just for a moment, recognize that for some of us life has never been so good?
The power has remained on at my house. My bosses have asked that I contribute an occasional piece via the Internet, but are far too distracted to demand more.
Los Angeles Unified schools’ chief works for district supplier
Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines earned more than $150,000 last year for serving on the board of one of the nation’s leading educational publishing companies, a firm with more than $16 million in contracts with the school district over the last five years.
Scholastic Inc. provides the main reading intervention curriculum for the Los Angeles Unified School District, a program that is part of the company’s fast-growing educational technology business.
Cortines has disclosed his relationship with the New York-based company, and officials say he has avoided any decisions on Scholastic contracts.
Cortines’ role, however, has generated criticism among some former senior officials and current employees. They said the corporate tie creates an appearance of impropriety.
Seattle Citizen Lawsuit over Discovery Math Curriculum Court Transcript
Cops deliver Monona Grove School Budget News
Uniformed police delivered a school budget meeting flyer door-to-door in Monona on Feb. 11. The flyer encouraged public attendance at a school district hearing that night to discuss the possible consolidation of Monona’s pre-kindergarten through second grade Maywood Elementary School with the community’s third through sixth grade Winnequah Elementary. It was signed by Monona mayor, Robb Kahl.
Depending on one’s perspective, it was either a waste of taxpayer money and an embarrassing move by Kahl or a necessary means of getting important news to citizens who haven’t gotten enough information on potential school budget cuts, especially when it comes to the possibility of closing the beloved Maywood school. Both points of view are represented in dozens of comments on Monona School Board Vice President Peter Sobol’s blog.
Fascinating and not a great idea.
Writing Instruction in Massachusetts: Commonwealth’s Students Making Gains, Still Need Improvement
BOSTON – Writing Instruction in Massachusetts [1.3MB PDF], published today by Pioneer Institute, underscores the fact that despite 17 years of education reform and first-in-the-nation performance on standardized tests, many Massachusetts middle school students are still not on the trajectory to be prepared for writing in a work or post-secondary education environment.
The study is authored by Alison L. Fraser, president of Practical Policy, with a foreword by Will Fitzhugh of The Concord Review, who, since 1987, has published over 800 history research papers by high school students from around the world.
Writing Instruction finds that Massachusetts’ students have improved, with 45 percent of eighth graders writing at or above the ‘Proficient’ level on the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress test. In comparison, only 31 percent of eighth graders scored at or above ‘Proficient’ in 1998. The paper ascribes Massachusetts’ success in improving writing skills to adherence to MCAS standards and the state’s nation-leading state curriculum frameworks. It also suggests that strengthening the standards will help the state address the 55 percent of eighth graders who still score in the “needs improvement” or below categories.
According to a report on a 2004 survey of 120 major American businesses affiliated with the Business Roundtable, remedying writing deficiencies on the job costs corporations nearly $3.1 billion annually. Writing, according to the National Writing Commission’s report Writing: A Ticket to Work…Or a Ticket Out, is a “threshold skill” in the modern world. Being able to write effectively and coherently is a pathway to both hiring and promotion in today’s job market.
“While we should be pleased that trends show Massachusetts students have improved their writing skills, the data shows that we need renewed focus to complete the task of readying them for this important skill,” says Jim Stergios, executive director of Pioneer Institute. “Before we even think about altering academic standards, whether through state or federal efforts, we need to recommit to such basics.”
The study notes that if the failure to learn to write well is pervasive in Massachusetts, one should look first to the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks and the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) designed to measure mastery of those frameworks. Analysis completed in December 2009 by a member of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education found that nearly all of the skills that the 21st Century Skills Task Force identified as important, such as effective written communication, are already embedded in the state’s academic standards guiding principles.
Districts have options when it comes to teacher salary inequities
Center on Reinventing Public Education:
School districts can take steps to level out salary inequities caused by maldistributions of teachers, according to researchers at the University of Washington.
It is a well-known fact that within districts, higher-paid teachers with more experience congregate in the more affluent schools, while poorer schools have less-experienced, lower-paid teachers.
If, as has been proposed, the federal Title I program closes a loophole in its “comparability” provision, districts would have no choice but to address the problem.
According to Marguerite Roza and Sarah Yatsko at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, districts have four “salary reallocation” options that can erase the imbalance and work to close the spending gap, without reassigning the more experienced teachers.
Georgia Schools Inquiry Finds Signs of Cheating
Georgia education officials ordered investigations on Thursday at 191 schools across the state where they had found evidence of tampering on answer sheets for the state’s standardized achievement test.
The order came after an inquiry on cheating by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement raised red flags regarding one in five of Georgia’s 1,857 public elementary and middle schools. A large proportion of the schools were in Atlanta.
The inquiry flagged any school that had an abnormal number of erasures on answer sheets where the answers were changed from wrong to right, suggesting deliberate interference by teachers, principals or other administrators.
Experts said it could become one of the largest cheating scandals in the era of widespread standardized testing.
“This is the biggest erasure problem I’ve ever seen,” said Gregory J. Cizek, a testing expert at the University of North Carolina who has studied cheating. “This doesn’t suggest that it was just kids randomly changing their answers, it suggests a pattern of unethical behavior on the part of either kids or educators.”
Despite federal stimulus money, some state school budgets may be at risk
Center on Reinventing Public Education, via email:
An early “snapshot” analysis of 23 state budgets using federal education stimulus dollars indicates that short-term benefits could result in less spending on schools over the long term in some states.
In their analysis, Have States Disproportionately Cut Education Budgets During ARRA? Early Findings, researchers Marguerite Roza and Susan Funk raise a yellow flag of caution.
In the case of 13 of the 23 states they examined, education spending as a share of state budgets declined during the infusion of the federal stimulus money via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
“A key concern emerging in this analysis is the notion that while the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) was intended to ‘protect’ state education spending (and did likely result in short-term stabilization), the longterm effect could be the opposite,” according to the brief. “For states where education’s share of the state budget shrank during SFSF, we might anticipate that restoring education’s previous share could be difficult.”
Marshall High School wins L.A. Unified’s Academic Decathlon
Nicole Santa Cruz:
Marshall High School beat out 63 schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District in the annual Academic Decathlon, district officials announced Thursday night.
Anastasya Lloyd-Damnjanovic was the highest-scoring individual student, with 8,933 points.
The decathlon tests students’ knowledge in a variety of areas, including history. This year’s focus was the French Revolution.
Marshall first won a national championship in 1987. Since then, the district has won 15 state and 10 national competitions.
West High School in Torrance won the Los Angeles County Academic Decathlon for the second year in a row, county officials announced Thursday.
Texas Board of Education and our Christian founders
Nicole Stockdale:
Sunday, yet another long-form essay on the Texas State Board of Education will hit the newsstands, this one in The New York Times Magazine.
“How Christian Were the Founders?” discusses the philosophy of “members of what is the most influential state board of education in the country, and one of the most politically conservative,” focusing the debate on whether the authors of the Constitution intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation.The one thing that underlies the entire program of the nation’s Christian conservative activists is, naturally, religion. But it isn’t merely the case that their Christian orientation shapes their opinions on gay marriage, abortion and government spending. More elementally, they hold that the United States was founded by devout Christians and according to biblical precepts. This belief provides what they consider not only a theological but also, ultimately, a judicial grounding to their positions on social questions. When they proclaim that the United States is a “Christian nation,” they are not referring to the percentage of the population that ticks a certain box in a survey or census but to the country’s roots and the intent of the founders.
Marshall High School wins L.A. Unified’s Academic Decathlon
Marshall High School beat out 63 schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District in the annual Academic Decathlon, district officials announced Thursday night.
Anastasya Lloyd-Damnjanovic was the highest-scoring individual student, with 8,933 points.
The decathlon tests students’ knowledge in a variety of areas, including history. This year’s focus was the French Revolution.
Marshall first won a national championship in 1987. Since then, the district has won 15 state and 10 national competitions.
West High School in Torrance won the Los Angeles County Academic Decathlon for the second year in a row, county officials announced Thursday.
State details Milwaukee Public Schools failures
Milwaukee Public Schools has failed to fulfill multiple elements of its state-ordered educational improvement plan, according to newly released documents from the state Department of Public Instruction that detail why the district is at risk of losing millions of dollars of federal funding.
Though the main standoff between the state and its largest district continues to be a disagreement over how MPS imposes remedies of an ongoing special education lawsuit, the new documents specify where MPS hasn’t met other state orders, including literacy instruction, identifying students who need extra help or special services, and tracking newly hired, first-year teachers and teachers hired on emergency licenses.
The district’s lack of compliance with what are known formally as “corrective action requirements” – imposed by the state because MPS repeatedly has missed yearly academic progress targets – is what led Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers last week to initiate the process of withholding up to $175 million in federal dollars.
Legally, the greatest leverage Evers can exert against a poorly performing district under the federal No Child Left Behind law is to withhold federal dollars. To take that action, he said, he first had to issue notice to MPS and allow the district to request a hearing.
Milwaukee School wars go nuclear?
When I interviewed Mayor Tom Barrett about his proposal to take over MPS last August, he insisted it was no power grab.
It was all about the kids, Mayor Barrett said. He believed the change was the right thing. He acknowledged that the plan was controversial but the legislative session in Madison would be over by the end of the year and, one way or another, we’d all move on by 2010.
Well here it is February, and we’re still talking about it. The Democratic leaders in the state legislature show no interest in bringing the plan to a vote, and there’s little evidence the bill would pass.
In an apparent change of heart, Mayor Barrett continues to push the idea. With his experience in Madison and Washington, you’d expect Barrett to know how to count and to know when to stop pushing for a piece of legislation that doesn’t have enough votes.
But Barrett is also running for statewide office, and he appears to believe this issue will play well with voters across Wisconsin. It gives him the opportunity to run against type and show that he’s willing to take on the teachers union, usually a reliable supporter of Democrats, in support of a popular initiative.
My Plan for the Monona School District
At tonight’s listening session several people talked about the structural deficit problem: the fact that due to the state funding formula, we are looking at a deficit that grows by a million dollars each year for as far as the projections go. As Craig mentioned, our revenues increase by about 2% a year (less than inflation) while our expenses go up by more than 4% per year. This is the real problem that makes the issues brought up today look like child’s play. Several people asked us to consider the long term, a sentiment I couldn’t agree with more. Others asked us to consider an operating referendum to avoid cuts. I agree that given the current situation we will need to consider this as we move forward. But an operating referendum alone can’t solve this problem – the deficit is not a one time or short term issue.
A while ago someone asked for my long term plan for solving the structural deficit. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I have to say there is no magic bullet for this, I haven’t heard anyone on the board or administration articulate any specific ideas that get us out of this situation. What we need more than anything is else is good ideas.
Rhee: Professional Development is on for Friday, after a week of snow days
Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, trying to salvage something from a lost week, has asked teachers to report to school Friday for a scheduled day of professional development. Rhee increased funding and time devoted to helping educators lift their game. So, ice and drifting snow not withstanding, PD is on. Here is her just-released letter to teachers:
Dear DCPS Teachers,
We have decided to proceed with Friday’s professional development day as planned. One of the key messages I hear from teachers at the listening sessions I do at schools across the city is that we need to do more to support you in our work. The district-wide professional development days are a key opportunity to do exactly that. Because we have such a limited number of these days, and because the worst of the weather has passed, I have decided to move forward with the scheduled activities tomorrow.
The Temptation to Cheat in Computer Science Classes at Stanford
Ryan Mac, via a kind reader’s email:
n January, on the first day of the Computer Science 106A: Program Methodology course at Stanford University, Eric Roberts, the professor, began with his customary admonition: Cheat, and you will be caught. And, he added: Cheat, and your classmates will suffer. More weight will be given to the final exam when calculating the final grade.
These are not idle threats in a department where it may be easy to cheat (cut, paste some code, voila!) but it is just as easy to detect cheating. (It is the computer science department, after all). Jay de la Torre, a senior, was caught and has been suspended this quarter as part of his punishment. Mr. de la Torre was taking the computer science class for a second time in his junior year when he cheated. After he was disciplined, he resigned from his position as student body vice president in November, The Stanford Daily reported.
“I wasn’t even thinking of how it easy it would for me to be caught,” he said.
Audit: Merged School districts could save Kansas millions
Consolidating public school districts in Kansas could save millions of taxpayer dollars, although not enough to solve the state’s budget crisis this year, according to a new report released Monday.
Kansas has 293 school districts and last forced consolidation in the 1960s when the state overhauled education governance. Since then, legislators have relied on districts to decide for themselves when it’s time to merge, offering a few financial incentives to ease the process.
In its report, the Legislative Division of Post Audit (2.6MB PDF, supplemental District level data) looked at methods that would reduce the number of districts to either 266 or 152.
The first scenario – in which the state would have 50 fewer public school buildings and 230 fewer teachers and administrators – would save $18 million. Auditors said the consolidation could happen among districts that already split grade levels, such as one that has the elementary school and the other the high school.
Shylock, My Students, and Me: What I’ve learned from 30 years of teaching The Merchant of Venice
I have been teaching literature for 30 years, and the longer I teach, the more I enjoy teaching Shakespeare. As I grow older and wearier, his plays seem to deliver greater matter and art in a more condensed and lively way than any other text I could choose. To be clichéd about it: Shakespeare offers more bang for the buck.
While Shakespeare now draws me more than ever before, one work in particular draws me most. This is The Merchant of Venice. For me, this extraordinary play grows increasingly subtle and supple with time. It continues to excite me with its language, its depth of character, and its philosophical, political, spiritual, and pedagogical implications. Looking back over my years of teaching the play, I see that the way it has been received by my students is an index to how our society has changed. I also see how much the play continues to push against established readings and to challenge even the most seemingly enlightened perspectives. The Merchant of Venice is both a mirror of our times and a means of transcending the bias of our times. It teaches how to teach.
My response to the play may be connected to the nature of my career in literature. I was exposed to highbrow literary criticism in the 1970s at elite undergraduate and graduate institutions. This was a time when multiculturalism was making inroads in academia but when progressive thinking coexisted with an ingrained snobbism regarding how literature should be taught and who should teach it.
Chicago’s Marshall High School Moves Closer to a Sweeping Overhaul
On an April morning last year, more than 200 juniors took their seats at Marshall High School for the Prairie State Achievement Examination, a measure of whether their school had prepared them to meet basic state learning standards.
When the results came in for Marshall, only three students had met the standards for the math part of the test. Eighteen had passed the reading part. No students had exceeded state standards in reading or math.
The test results were but one indication of a high school in trouble. For years, many Marshall students have been ill prepared to enter college or the job market, and the school’s long history is also marked by frustration and failures that often have little to do with math or reading.
The dismal statistics have made Marshall a target for turnaround in the next school year, along with Phillips High School and three elementary schools. Turnaround is an intervention promoted by the Obama administration that involves firing a school’s current staff, committing resources in the form of building upgrades and new curriculums, and training new teachers.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate:
The Great Recession may be over, but this era of high joblessness is probably just beginning. Before it ends, it will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults. It will leave an indelible imprint on many blue-collar men. It could cripple marriage as an institution in many communities. It may already be plunging many inner cities into a despair not seen for decades. Ultimately, it is likely to warp our politics, our culture, and the character of our society for years to come.
HOW SHOULD WE characterize the economic period we have now entered? After nearly two brutal years, the Great Recession appears to be over, at least technically. Yet a return to normalcy seems far off. By some measures, each recession since the 1980s has retreated more slowly than the one before it. In one sense, we never fully recovered from the last one, in 2001: the share of the civilian population with a job never returned to its previous peak before this downturn began, and incomes were stagnant throughout the decade. Still, the weakness that lingered through much of the 2000s shouldn’t be confused with the trauma of the past two years, a trauma that will remain heavy for quite some time.
The unemployment rate hit 10 percent in October, and there are good reasons to believe that by 2011, 2012, even 2014, it will have declined only a little. Late last year, the average duration of unemployment surpassed six months, the first time that has happened since 1948, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking that number. As of this writing, for every open job in the U.S., six people are actively looking for work.
Why Did New Jersey’s Cost-Per-Pupil Increase by 7.9% in 2009?
1) Last year’s federal stimulus bill included $100 billion for education to mitigate the effects of the recession. This money was intended to last for two years but some states used up all the money this year. The New York Times reports that even though Ed Sec Arne Duncan “repeatedly warned states and districts to avoid spending the money in ways that could lead to dislocations when the gush of federal money came to an end,” some states disregarded that advice. New Jersey is part of that club. The Times piece quotes our very own Dr. Bruce Baker of Rutgers who predicts that “States are going to face a huge problem because they’ll have to find some way to replace these billions, either with cuts to their K-12 systems or by finding alternative revenues.” Bottom line: we spent more this year because we imprudently allocated federal funds and spent it all in one shot.
2) Teachers’ annual salary increases continued at an unabated 4.5% or so. Some districts reported slightly lower settlements – about a 4.3% range – but not enough to make a difference. Health benefits packages also saw big hikes and 86% of school employees in Jersey make no contributions.
Knoxville Area School Gun Incidents
— Feb. 10, 2010: Inskip Elementary School Principal Elisa Luna and Assistant Principal Amy Brace were shot in the school office area. The suspect, who police said “is or was an employee of the school” minutes later.
— Oct. 8, 2008: A 15-year-old Harriman High School student brought a gun to school as part of what he described as a murder-suicide plan, authorities said. The boy, a sophomore, gave up the gun when confronted
— Oct. 7, 2008: 16-year-old student at Austin-East Performing Arts and Sciences Magnet High School in East Knoxville was arrested after authorities, acting on a tip, found a 9 mm pistol and ammunition in the boy’s backpack.
At UW-Madison, unique short courses for students who farm
Unlike other undergrads on the UW-Madison campus, many of these students weren’t interested in taking AP chemistry or honors English in high school.
They may not have taken the ACT college entrance exam or cared much about grades. Their kingdom is the farm, not the classroom.
“I’ve never liked school that much,” said Brittney Muenster, 18, of Seymour, about 20 miles west of Green Bay. “I just never saw fit to go to school for four years.”
One of the university’s oldest programs, UW-Madison’s Farm and Industry Short Course has been offering Wisconsin’s future farmers like Muenster cutting-edge techniques during the non-growing season, November to March.
Madison Public Schools Face Tax & Spending Challenges: What is the budget?
Gayle Worland, via a kind reader’s email:
The Madison School District is facing a $30 million budget hole for 2010-11, a dilemma that could force school board members this spring to order massive cuts in programs, dramatically raise property taxes, or impose a combination of both.
District officials will unveil a list of possible cuts — which could include layoffs — next month, with public hearings to follow.
“This is a big number,” School Board President Arlene Silveira said. “So we have to look at how we do business, we have to look at efficiencies, we have to look at our overall budget, and we are going to have to make hard decisions. We are in a horrible situation right now, and we do have to look at all options.”
Even with the maximum hike in school property taxes — $28.6 million, or a jump of $312.50 for the owner of a $250,000 Madison home — the district would have to close a $1.2 million budget gap, thanks in part to a 15 percent drop in state aid it had to swallow in 2009-10 and expects again for 2010-11.
The district, with a current budget of about $360 million, expects to receive $43.7 million from the state for 2010-11, which would be the lowest sum in 13 years, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, and down from a high of $60.7 million in 2008-09. The district is receiving $51.5 million from the state for the current school year.
I’m not sure where the $360 million number came from. Board member Ed Hughes mentioned a $432,764,707 2010-2011 budget number. The 2009-2010 budget, according to a an October, 2009 District document was $418,415,780. The last “Citizen’s budget” number was $339,685,844 in 2007-2008 and $333,101,865 in 2006-2007.
The budget numbers remind me of current Madison School Board member Ed Hughes’ very useful 2005 quote:
This points up one of the frustrating aspects of trying to follow school issues in Madison: the recurring feeling that a quoted speaker – and it can be someone from the administration, or MTI, or the occasional school board member – believes that the audience for an assertion is composed entirely of idiots.
Related: Madison School District & Madison Teachers Union Reach Tentative Agreement: 3.93% Increase Year 1, 3.99% Year 2; Base Rate $33,242 Year 1, $33,575 Year 2: Requires 50% MTI 4K Members and will “Review the content and frequency of report cards” and “Budget comments in a vacuum?”
6th Annual AP Report to the Nation: Maryland Finishes #1
The College Board [1MB PDF file]:
Educators across the United States continue to enable a wider and more ethnically diverse proportion of students to achieve success in AP®. Significant inequities remain, however, which can result in traditionally underserved students not receiving the type of AP opportunities that can best prepare them for college success. The 6th Annual AP Report to the Nation uses a combination of state, national and AP Program data to provide each U.S. state with the context it can use to celebrate its successes, understand its unique challenges, and set meaningful and data-driven goals to prepare more students for success in college.
Houston Area Districts consider ending salary perk for teachers
Houston-area school districts spend tens of millions of dollars a year on teachers with advanced degrees that studies show don’t produce better student achievement.
But with money tight, a handful of districts are considering ditching the traditional salary bump for teachers with master’s degrees in favor of pay based more on student learning. The Houston Independent School District and the top-rated YES Prep charter school chain are among those looking to experiment.
“I would like us to look with our teachers and see whether or not those dollars could be spent in a more productive way,” HISD Superintendent Terry Grier said.
HISD estimates that the extra payout for teachers with a master’s or a doctorate is costing taxpayers about $7.8 million this school year. Grier suggested that the money might be better spent to pay teachers more for taking on leadership roles or to bolster the district’s bonus plan tied to student test scores.
Texas lawmakers stopped mandating higher salaries for teachers with advanced degrees in 1984, but many districts continue the practice. The number of teachers with master’s degrees statewide has grown over the last four years, though the percentage has dropped slightly to 20.9.
Background via this spreadsheet.
New Jersey School Elections & Budget Calendar
New Jersey Department of Education 140K PDF. Related: Madison School District 2010-2011 budget calendar.
Do School Libraries Need Books?
Keeping traditional school libraries up to date is costly, with the constant need to acquire new books and to find space to store them. Yet for all that trouble, students roam the stacks less and less because they find it so much more efficient to work online. One school, Cushing Academy, made news last fall when it announced that it would give away most of its 20,000 books and transform its library into a digital center.
Do schools need to maintain traditional libraries? What are the educational consequences of having students read less on the printed page and more on the Web?
New Jersey School, District & State Report Cards
New Jersey Department of Education:
The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has imposed specific accountability and reporting requirements on states. The NCLB reports present school-, district-, and state-level information in those areas mandated by NCLB, which are as follows: status regarding Adequate Yearly Progress; information on highly qualified teachers; attendance and dropout data; and assessment data that has incorporated all of the conditions mandated under NCLB for meeting federally approved proficiency levels.
The results displayed on NCLB Reports are based on the state assessment data with the NCLB conditions applied. Additionally, the NCLB data incorporates the data appeals submitted by districts/schools that have been granted by the NJDOE. Therefore, the data in the NCLB Reports may be different from the data displayed on the NJ School Report Cards.
State secrets on Texas school front
Before being ordered by Gov. Rick Perry not to compete for a chunk of the $4.3 billion “Race to the Top” federal grants for public schools, staffers at the Texas Education Agency had put in more than 800 hours preparing an application.
Inquiring minds, including my colleague Ericka Mellon, wanted to look at what our employees had proposed and filed requests for copies of the draft under the Texas Public Information Act.
But TEA Commissioner Robert Scott, a Perry loyalist, ordered agency attorneys to appeal to the attorney general, asking that the work be declared a state secret.
The Public Information Act states that all documents produced with the taxpayers’ money are public with certain specific exceptions
So what exception is the TEA citing?
The exception that information can be kept from the public if its release “would give advantage to a competitor or bidder.”
But we’re not bidding or competing.
Denying Choices
WSFA:
Why shouldn’t local school boards have the option of allowing charter schools in their districts if they feel it can help serve students better?
A group of legislators in the House Education Appropriations Committee not only rejected that option, but didn’t allow other members of the House to even vote on it.
They rejected the charter schools possibility outright. With it they also rejected the possibility of millions of dollars in federal assistance for education.
For a state that can use every cent and more to improve education, this wasn’t a wise choice.
The $ 4 billion dollars in federal money will be spent, but the likelihood of part of it being spent for our students is now diminished, since part of the criteria for getting the money is charter schools being an option in your state.
‘Algebra-for-All’ Push Found to Yield Poor Results
Spurred by a succession of reports pointing to the importance of algebra as a gateway to college, educators and policymakers embraced “algebra for all” policies in the 1990s and began working to ensure that students take the subject by 9th grade or earlier.
A trickle of studies suggests that in practice, though, getting all students past the algebra hump has proved difficult and has failed, some of the time, to yield the kinds of payoffs educators seek.
Among the newer findings:
• An analysis using longitudinal statewide data on students in Arkansas and Texas found that, for the lowest-scoring 8th graders, even making it one course past Algebra 2 might not be enough to help them become “college and career ready” by the end of high school.
• An evaluation of the Chicago public schools’ efforts to boost algebra coursetaking found that, although more students completed the course by 9th grade as a result of the policy, failure rates increased, grades dropped slightly, test scores did not improve, and students were no more likely to attend college when they left the system.
Related: Madison School District Math Task Force and West High School Math Teachers letter to Isthmus.
Progressive Dane to host Madison School Board Candidate Forum 2/21/2010
via a TJ Mertz email [PDF Flyer]:
What: Public Forum featuring all candidates for Madison Board of Education.
When: Sunday February 21, 2010; 1:30 to 3:30 PM.
Where: JC Wright Middle School, 1717 Fish Hatchery Rd. Madison, WI.
Contact: Thomas J. Mertz, tjmertz@sbcglobal.net; (608) 255-4550
On Sunday, February 21, voters in the Madison Metropolitan School District will have their first opportunity to hear and question the School Board candidates on the ballot in the April 6 election. Unopposed incumbents Beth Moss and Maya Cole will begin with short statements on their service and why they are seeking re-election. Next the candidates for Seat 4, James Howard and Tom Farley, will answer questions from Progressive Dane and the audience. Madison District 12 Alder and member of the Board of Education
– Common Council Liaison Committee Satya Rhodes-Conway will serve as the moderator.
Progressive Dane is hosting this event as a public service to increase awareness of this important election.”The seven people on the School Board are responsible for the education of about 24,000 students and an annual budget of roughly $400 million.” explained Progressive Dane Co-Chair and Education Task Force Chair Thomas J. Mertz. “We want people to know what is going on, choose their candidate wisely and get
involved.
Candidates Tom Farley and James Howard welcome this opportunity to communicate with the voters. Farley expects a substantive discussion; he is “looking forward to participating in the Progressive Dane forum. It will certainly be our most in-depth public discussion of the issues – and most likely the liveliest and most enjoyable one too.”
Howard expressed his appreciation for “this opportunity to talk to the voters about my record of service with public schools and my unique perspective that I will add to the Board of Education” and is also ready to discuss “how to maintain and strengthen Madison schools.”
Incumbents Cole and Moss are also pleased to take part. Cole said she is “happy to have this opportunity to meet with members of our community to discuss the work of the Board, to listen to their concerns and to share the opportunities we are embracing to make our district better for all children. Moss also appreciates the chance to share her thoughts on “the good work that is going on in the schools and some of the challenges we face.”
Progressive Dane is a progressive political party in Dane County, Wisconsin. Progressive Dane is working to make Dane County a better place for everyone (no exceptions!). Progressive Dane helps community members organize around issues that are important to them and also works on the grassroots level to elect progressive political candidates.
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The most important (Madison) race this spring
Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:
t almost didn’t happen.
And Madison should be grateful that it did.
Two enthusiastic candidates are seeking an empty seat on the Madison School Board this spring.
James Howard, an economist and father of city school children, lists “high expectations” as a top priority.
Tom Farley, director of a nonprofit foundation and father of Madison school children, touts President Barack Obama’s call for innovation.
It’s the only competitive race for three seats because incumbents Maya Cole and Beth Moss are unopposed.
That leaves Howard’s and Farley’s campaigns to shine a needed spotlight on the many challenges and opportunities facing city schools.
Both men hope to replace Johnny Winston Jr., who announced last year he would not seek a third term.
Any merit to National Merit program?
Jonathan Reider via Valeria Strauss:
I have long wondered why the National Merit scholarship program had so much cache, given the criteria necessary for winning.
The program is a competition in which kids become eligible if they do well on the PSAT, or Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which is generally taken in 11th grade though some students take it earlier. Any regular reader to this blog will know that I do not look kindly on anything in education that relies on the a single standardized test score.
Here is a critique of the program that I recently read and wanted to share. It was written by Jonathan Reider, director of college counseling at San Francisco University High School, in response to a list-serv query about how schools should display National Merit winners. His advice: Don’t.
Madison School District appears to be softening stance toward charter schools
Susan Troller, via a Chris Murphy email:
When teachers Bryan Grau and Debora Gil R. Casado pitched an idea in 2002 to start a charter school in Madison that would teach classes in both English and Spanish, they ran into resistance from school administrators and their own union. Grau and his cohorts were asked to come up with a detailed budget for their proposal, but he says they got little help with that complex task. He recalls one meeting in particular with Roger Price, the district’s director of financial services.
“We asked for general help. He said he would provide answers to our specific questions. We asked where to begin and again he said he would answer our specific questions. That’s the way it went.”
Ruth Robarts, who was on the Madison School Board at the time, confirms that there was strong resistance from officials under the former administration to the creation of Nuestro Mundo, which finally got the green light and is now a successful program that is being replicated in schools around the district.
“First they would explain how the existing programs offered through the district were already doing a better job than this proposal, and then they would show how the proposal could never work,” says Robarts. “There seemed to be a defensiveness towards these innovative ideas, as if they meant the district programs were somehow lacking.”
The Madison School District “has historically been one of the most hostile environments in the state for charter schools, especially under Superintendent Rainwater,” adds John Gee, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of Charter Schools.
Related: the now dead proposed Madison Studio Charter and Badger Rock Middle School.
Madison continues to lag other Districts in terms of innovative opportunities, such as Verona’s new Chinese Mandarin immersion charter school.
Amid rising tuition costs and heavy debt burdens, college marketplace lacks consumer focus
MassINC, C. Anthony Broh & Dana Ansel:
Rising college costs have Americans making greater sacrifices to get their degrees. In 2008, families took on more than $86 billion in college loans and the average undergraduate finished school with more than $23,000 in debt. Higher education is now one of the most important investment decisions middle class Americans make. But far too often they’re lured to colleges with the most energetic tour guide, the biggest reputation for partying, or the highest ranking in the popular press.
These temptations win out because the choices are complicated and families aren’t getting the information they needed to make truly informed decisions. Beyond choosing a school, families trying to find the best savings plan or the least expensive loan also face complicated choices with insufficient information.
According to the new MassINC report, “When you look at the tuition prices that middle class families are facing, together with the debt burdens graduates are taking on, it is astounding that there is such little transparency in the higher education marketplace,” said Greg Torres, President of MassINC and Publisher of CommonWealth magazine. “By laying out a framework for how parents and students navigate this system, we hope to shed some light on what we can do to give more support to families making one of the biggest investments of their lives.”
Read the complete report here. CTRL – click to download the 2.0MB PDF file.
An Evaluation: Virtual Charter Schools
Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau:
Virtual charter schools are publicly funded nonsectarian schools that are exempt from many regulations that apply to traditional public schools and that offer the majority of their classes online. They began operating in Wisconsin during the 2002-03 school year. Pupils typically attend from their homes and communicate with teachers using e-mail, by telephone, or in online discussions. During the 2007-08 school year, 15 virtual charter schools enrolled 2,951 pupils. Most were high schools.
A Wisconsin Court of Appeals ruling in December 2007 prevented the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) from providing state aid payments to a virtual charter school through the open enrollment program, which allows pupils to attend public schools outside of their school districts of residence. 2007 Wisconsin Act 222, which was enacted to address concerns raised in the lawsuit, also required us to address a number of topics related to virtual charter schools. Therefore, we evaluated:
- enrollment trends, including the potential effects of a limit on open enrollment in virtual charter schools that was enacted in 2007 Wisconsin Act 222;
- virtual charter school operations, including attendance requirements, opportunities for social development and interaction, and the provision of special education and related services;
- funding and expenditures, including the fiscal effects of open enrollment on “sending” and “receiving” districts;
- teaching in virtual charter schools, including teacher licensing and pupil-teacher interaction; and
- academic achievement, including test scores and other measures, as well as pupils’, parents’, and teachers’ satisfaction with virtual charter schools.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Clueless in Washington
IT WAS never reasonable to expect that Barack Obama’s budget proposal, delivered to Congress on February 1st, would do much to bring down America’s vast deficit in the near term. True, the economy has returned to growth. But a big part of that consists of restocking after a savage downturn that has left inventories depleted. Consumers are still struggling with the collapse in the values of their homes and other assets. And unemployment stands at a stubborn 10%: the administration forecasts see only a fractional fall in joblessness this year.
Unlike other rich countries, America lacks the “automatic stabilisers” that kick in during times of recession to help boost demand. Unemployment benefit is extremely limited. Most states are legally barred from running deficits, so when their revenues fall in times of recession they make painful cuts, firing workers and ending programmes–thus exacerbating the downturn rather than offsetting it. Only the federal government can fill the demand gap, and if it is too parsimonious and the recession returns, the deficit would get much worse.
If you really want to hear about it …
The seminal coming-of-age novel, The Catcher in the Rye, came out in 1951 during a time of anxious, Cold War conformity. The book by J D Salinger, the reclusive American author who died last week at the age of 91, featured its immortal teenage protagonist – the anguished, rebellious Holden Caulfield.
The book struck a chord with American teenagers who identified with the novel’s themes of alienation, innocence and rebellion.
But when the novel was translated into Russian during the “Khrushchev thaw”, its anti-hero’s tormented soul-searching also reverberated among admirers throughout the Soviet bloc.
Nad propastyu vo rzhi was first published in the Soviet Union in the November 1960 issue of the popular literary magazine Inostrannaya Literatura (Overseas Literature). The translation became an instant sensation, and dog-eared copies of the magazine were passed from reader to reader.
Boris Paramonov, a Russian philosopher and contributor to RFE/RL’s Russian Service, says he and his Russian friends and colleagues instantly recognized that it was a book that would endure.
Achievement gap
Ask about the signature achievements of George W. Bush’s eight years as president, and the No Child Left Behind Act is certain to be high on the list. The 2002 law made accountability a watchword in public school education. It aimed to evaluate the nation’s elementary and secondary schools based on student test scores and to hold schools, teachers and administrators to account for their success or failure in moving students to achieve proficiency targets for the classroom.
The law, which has been the subject of much debate and criticism from the start, is up for reauthorization this year. President Obama has made clear his intent to reshape the legislation and the federal role in public education. Not clear yet is what precisely he intends to do.
No Child Left Behind has been criticized fiercely for its heavy emphasis on yearly testing and the rating of schools as successes or failures on the basis of test scores. For teachers and school officials, one of the most contentious of the law’s requirements is that schools be able to show, from the test scores, that every student group is making adequate yearly progress, AYP. Repeated failure to make AYP results in penalties that include shutting down schools.
The law also set a deadline: that students be proficient in math and English by 2014, a goal Obama’s secretary of education, Arne Duncan, recently described as utopian.
Girl thrown over balcony failed to get place at ESF primary school
The mother who threw her four-year-old daughter from a shopping mall balcony before leaping to her death had recently learned that her child had failed to get a primary place at an ESF school, despite attending an ESF kindergarten. Police are still investigating the cause of the tragedy….
A Letter from Polly Williams to Tony Evers on the Milwaukee Public Schools
Wisconsin Representative Annette Polly Williams:
February 5, 2010
State Superintendent Tony Evers
Department of Public Instruction
125 S. Webster Street
PO Box 7841
Madison, WI 53707-7841
Dear Superintendent Evers:
I am contacting you regarding your Notice of Decision dated February 4, 2010 issued to the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) which would potentially eliminate the $175 million in federal funds received for services to low-income children through the Title I program. In your press statement, you indicated that you had a legal responsibility to the children of Milwaukee and that you were using the only tool allowed under state law to ensure these federal funds are used effectively to improve MPS. Not only I am deeply perplexed by the timing of this notice, but I’m equally concemed over the use of your authority to withhold federal dollars to “speed up change” in MPS. I find your efforts to be disingenuous.
Clusty Search: Polly Williams, Tony Evers. Via the Milwaukee Drum.
Politics of public education reform – exploring Race to the Top’s charter school emphasis
President Obama’s Race to the Top (RttT) state competition has brought charter schools to the forefront of public education reform. Additionally, charter schools are prominent in Obama’s 2011 proposed budget – increasing funding for charter schools and an extra $1.8 billion toward Supporting Student Success (which focuses on Promise Neighborhoods, of which charter schools are the central focus).
RttT relies heavily on charter schools as a tool for reform, awarding more points to states which enable charter school creation than to those which do not:
Madison School District Budget Planning Calendar 2010-2011
HOPE Christian schools go quietly about business of teaching
It’s easy to miss the school tucked into the corner of a strip mall at N. 25th St. and W. North Ave. and its sister building a few miles away, an airy gray metal and brick structure that doesn’t have a sign yet.
The most noticeable school of the three may be at the south end of a nonprofit building on N. King Drive, and that’s because a large banner outside proclaims the high school’s name.
But within these unassuming spaces, HOPE Christian Schools are quietly expanding and changing, figuring out the best way to make sure every child – from kindergarten through 12th grade – is on the path to college.
The schools are without frills because energy and resources at this point are better spent on the elements more closely tied to student success: strong teachers who want to stay year to year, innovative and empowered administrators, testing tools that provide day-to-day and week-to-week feedback about how fast kids are progressing and which ones need more attention.
“We’re still focusing on what our model looks like,” said Andrew Neumann, president of HOPE Christian Schools.
Neumann also is president of the umbrella nonprofit Educational Enterprises, which plans to establish schools nationwide that help populations of disadvantaged, minority children get to college. The schools in Milwaukee are a testing ground; this year, Educational Enterprises opened a HOPE-inspired college prep charter elementary school in Phoenix.
Choices without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards
Erica Frankenberg, Genevieve Siegel‐Hawley, and Jia Wang [1.4MB PDF] :
Seven years after the Civil Rights Project first documented extensive patterns of charter school segregation, the charter sector continues to stratify students by race, class and possibly language. This study is released at a time of mounting federal pressure to expand charter schools, despite on-going and accumulating evidence of charter school segregation.
Our analysis of the 40 states, the District of Columbia, and several dozen metropolitan areas with large enrollments of charter school students reveals that charter schools are more racially isolated than traditional public schools in virtually every state and large metropolitan area in the nation. While examples of truly diverse charter schools exist, our data show that these schools are not reflective of broader charter trends.
Four major themes emerge from this analysis of federal data. First, while charter schools are increasing in number and size, charter school enrollment presently accounts for only 2.5% of all public school students. Despite federal pressure to increase charter schools–based on the notion that charter schools are superior to traditional public schools, in spite of no conclusive evidence in support of that claim–charter school enrollment remains concentrated in just five states.
Second, we show that charter schools, in many ways, have more extensive segregation than other public schools. Charter schools attract a higher percentage of black students than traditional public schools, in part because they tend to be located in urban areas. As a result, charter school enrollment patterns display high levels of minority segregation, trends that are particularly severe for black students.
Rigorous college-prep (AP) classes skyrocketing in Washington state
A decade ago, most Seattle-area high schools offered just a handful of rigorous classes that provided a way to earn college credit while supercharging a transcript. And only students with top grades were allowed to sign up.
But in 10 years, the intensive, fast-paced Advanced Placement (AP) classes have skyrocketed in this state.
In 2008, fully one-quarter of Washington public-school seniors took at least one AP test during their high-school years, compared with 10 percent in 1997. In some schools, almost every student takes an AP class in junior or senior year.
And other schools around the state are moving fast to add AP classes and expand participation, in part because college admissions officials say the demanding classes do a good job of preparing students for higher education.
Many schools are encouraging all students — not just the high achievers, but also average students and even those who struggle — to take AP classes or enroll in other rigorous programs such as the International Baccalaureate (IB).
Creativity & Accountability
Yong Zhao is back in receptive Seattle this week preaching his gospel of edu-innovation. The anti-standards, pro-creativity Zhao is a Chinese-born prof at Michigan State. Here’s his thesis in a nutshell:
In my new book Catching Up or Leading the Way, I mostly focus on issues facing education in the United States noting that the current education reform efforts, with their emphasis on standards, testing, and outcome-based (read test score-based) accountability, are unlikely to make Americans “globally competitive.”
Zhao and I like the same schools and probably share a similar vision for what a good education looks like and the benefits it provides students. We both agree that bad standards and tests badly applied is bad for kids.
But his anti-standards mantra strikes me as a bit irresponsible in the sense that he doesn’t grapple with accountability. We have NCLB because states were not fulfilling the good school promise–they ignored generations of chronic failure. The Department of Education is now grappling with a new accountability framework, one that is tight on goals and loose on means.
Students dread transition out of Beverly Hills Unified
The few dozen nonresident eighth-graders who won’t be going to Beverly High as planned say they’re left in limbo, not sure where to enroll or how they’ll adjust to new academic and social standards.
Taylor Short said the last few weeks have been like walking through a fog, unable to see what’s ahead. The Beverly Vista Elementary eighth-grader has no idea where she’ll enroll next year. She wonders whether she’ll stay in touch with her best friends and feels let down by adults.
David Yona, a top athlete at El Rodeo Elementary, said he had been looking forward to the summer, when sports teams condition and train. Sadness sets in when he thinks about the fun he will probably miss before he starts his freshman year in the fall.
Although Taylor and David live outside the Beverly Hills Unified School District, they have attended its schools for years on special permits. The district’s Board of Education voted last month not to renew permits for the eighth-graders and other elementary students. They allowed high school students to continue through graduation.
The district is changing the way it funds schools, declining state money based on student attendance and instead using property-tax revenue. Board members argued that Beverly Hills taxpayers should not subsidize education for nonresidents.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Borrowing from Our Children
I realized, talking in office hours with a couple of my law students, that they did not really understand what is meant by the phrase “borrowing from our children” — as we often hear it raised or referenced these days in budget, deficit, and other policy debates. These are bright students who have often taken some economics, but haven’t necessarily learned to think through common economic tropes in current arguments. So it hadn’t really occurred to them to ask, what does it mean to “borrow from our children”? The children who mostly don’t yet exist, and in any case don’t have any money from which to borrow.
As soon as it’s put that way, it is obvious that what we actually mean is, we will borrow today from people who do have money — and who are willing to forego consumption today, presumably in China and the rest of Asia — and our children will repay the principal and interest. We have internalized the consumption (er, investment? -ed.) currently and externalized the repayment. It might be more accurate to say that we have exercised an option with regards to the future — we are the holders and they the involuntary writers of an option. But the fundamental public policy point is that in order to engage in this borrowing exercise today, even if we are going to “put” the repayment to our children, someone today has to be willing to give up consumption now and lend us those resources today.
To that end, David Sanger has a nice piece in the New York Times Week in Review, “The Debtor the World Still Bets On.” While we’re at it, Irwin Steltzer’s Weekly Standard essay, “Government Intervention Will Leave a Nasty Hangover.”
Schools use support centers to help students
Seated with a classmate at a table near the Whitnall High School library, freshman Josh Kelly stumbles into trouble with some of his make-up work for history class.
“There’s this artist in the Middle Ages, and I don’t know how to spell his name,” Josh says as teacher Andrew Baumann comes over quickly to help.
“Oh, Giotto . . . frescoes,” Baumann replies, bending over the teenager’s textbook. “He basically invented all these new techniques that people after him started using in the Renaissance.”
While Baumann is a social studies teacher, he’s not technically Josh’s social studies teacher. Instead, he’s one of two full-time faculty members who staff the school’s academic support center, an all-day service where students can come for tutoring, to complete projects or to make up assignments and tests.
It’s one of several solutions that high schools have come up with to provide students with more academic help during the school day, as opposed to trying to compete with work, sports and other activities that commonly lure teenagers outside of the school hours.
The year after Whitnall’s center started in 2006, Germantown High School initiated one of its own.
Today, it serves between 90 and 120 students a day – enough that Germantown’s Academic Support Center teacher, Cindy Collins, had to come up with a new 15-minute pass system to ensure she wasn’t turning students away. She also depends on volunteers from the school’s junior and senior classes to provide tutoring in easier subjects that freshmen might grapple with during the center’s busy times.
Widespread corruption among some of the mainland’s most ambitious academics has undermined the country’s scientific community but one man has made it his mission to expose the culprits and clean up the system
On January 16, Fang Shimin kicked off the new year with a recap of his top 10 news items of 2009. On his popular New Threads blog (www.xys.org), Fang, both respected and hated as the mainland’s self-appointed “science cop”, revisited a string of startling allegations: 12 university presidents and vice-presidents accused of plagiarism; a university president who claimed a leading scientific prize that was not rightfully his; two professors caught faking research results in an international journal; and a medical doctor who distorted the success rate for a new surgical procedure, which could have had serious health implications….
Students have all the right moves at Middleton’s Northside Elementary
When a teacher at Northside Elementary School taught students chess as part of a math enrichment class years ago, she was impressed by how much they enjoyed it.
“They just really ate it up so we decided to do this after-school club,” said teacher Barb Snell.
The weekly Chess Club, which was started about 10 years ago, grew to some 75 students. So this year it was offered to just fourth- and fifth-graders, bringing the number down to 40.
“It works your brain a lot, and it’s fun,” said fourth-grader Cami Spellman, who also was in the club last year.
Snell, a fourth-grade teacher at Northside, is no longer the chess club adviser.
Fourth-grade teacher Amy Weber, who took over advising the club and who also teaches gifted and talented students at another school, said the club is designed to offer a challenging activity for gifted and talented students, but there are no criteria for joining the club other than being in fourth or fifth grade.
Chicago Public Schools Seek a Bit of Serenity
Ron Huberman, the chief executive of Chicago’s public schools, is looking to hire a “Culture of Calm” coordinator to improve conditions in schools deemed most at risk for student violence.
The coordinator would work closely with principals on resolving conflicts, providing better emotional support for students, and improving discipline and attendance. The job could pay up to $90,000.
Autism risks detailed in children of older mothers
A woman’s chance of having a child with autism increase substantially as she ages, but the risk may be less for older dads than previously suggested, a new study analyzing more than 5 million births found.
“Although fathers’ age can contribute risk, the risk is overwhelmed by maternal age,” said University of California at Davis researcher Janie Shelton, the study’s lead author.
Mothers older than 40 were about 50 percent more likely to have a child with autism than those in their 20s; the risk for fathers older than 40 was 36 percent higher than for men in their 20s.
Even at that, the study suggests the risk of a woman over 40 having an autistic child was still less than 4 in 1,000, one expert noted.
The new research suggests the father’s age appears to make the most difference with young mothers. Among children whose mothers were younger than 25, autism was twice as common when fathers were older than 40 than when dads were in their 20s.
A Chicago High-Tech Alternative for Hollywood Hopefuls
House lights up!” proclaimed the silver-haired former lawyer who, with blue jeans, black T-shirt, black safari jacket and Nikes, looked oh-so Hollywood in an oh-so Chicago bastion, the Merchandise Mart.
As four understudies from the Second City comedy troupe entered the sound stage, they were trailed by film students climaxing three weeks of labor by taping a half-hour faux “Saturday Night Live.” It featured comedy sketches, droll pre-taped mock commercials and a live performance by Rhymefest, a hip hop artist.
The students get academic credit by handling sound, cameras, lights and the funny people, all with the help of professionals, and their polished handiwork, “Live at the Mart,” may soon be shown on NBC locally or nationally. It underscored the glitz, teamwork and market-driven pragmatism at the core of Chicago’s Flashpoint Academy of Media Arts and Sciences, one of the country’s most curious and disorienting educational institutions.
Imagine Pixar, Disney, Nintendo and Dreamworks all melded into a vocational setting. Started in 2007, this is a pricey ($25,000 a year) two-year school intended for those not motivated by high school, or brief college stays, but who are captivated by technology.
Contact the Seattle Public Schools’ board and administrators, asks Where’s the Math
On February 4th, King County Superior Court Judge Julie Spector ruled that last year’s Seattle School board decision to adopt the Discovering high school textbook series was arbitrary and capricious. Judge Spector’s ruling was heard and hailed across the country by private citizens and math education advocacy groups.
This unprecedented finding shows school boards and district administration that they need to consider evidence when making decisions. The voice of the community has been upheld by law, but the Seattle School district indicated they plan to appeal, demonstrating the typical arrogant, wasteful practices which necessitated the lawsuit in the first place.
Concerned individuals in Seattle and across the country need to speak up now, and let Seattle administration know that it’s time to move forward and refocus on the students, rather than defend a past mistake.
The ruling states:
“The court finds, based upon a review of the entire administrative record, that there is insufficient evidence for any reasonable Board member to approve the selection of the Discovering Series.”
“Innovation Schools” presentation
I attended a presentation on Friday by Dr. Rob Stein, principal (and alum) of Manual High School in Denver. Manual HS has been designated an “Innovation School” with approval from its staff and the local & state school boards, which means they, by Colorado state law, can deviate from district and state regulations (but not federal). They are not a charter school – all of their staff are district employees.
Denver’s central bureaucracy and expenditures sounded similar to Seattle’s. He showed a picture of Denver’s policy manuals: thousands of pages occupying an entire shelf. Some were downright comical but illustrative of the dysfunction in public schools. For example, their 98 page union agreement includes “Article 15-1-1: Each school will have a desk and a chair for each teacher, except in unusual circumstances.” He was quick to point out that the union is not to blame, but it’s symptomatic of a breakdown in trust in a system no longer optimized for student education. He showed the Denver schools org chart with dozens of arrows pointing to all of the folks that a typical principal needs to answer to. He estimated 80+ hours a week just to respond to the emails. More importantly, he calculated $4,157 per student to pay for central staff despite a fuzzy connection to specific student learning in his school.
Well worth reading.
For Students at Risk, Early College Proves a Draw
Precious Holt, a 12th grader with dangly earrings and a SpongeBob pillow, climbs on the yellow school bus and promptly falls asleep for the hour-plus ride to Sandhills Community College.
When the bus arrives, she checks in with a guidance counselor and heads off to a day of college classes, blending with older classmates until 4 p.m., when she and the other seniors from SandHoke Early College High School gather for the ride home.
There is a payoff for the long bus rides: The 48 SandHoke seniors are in a fast-track program that allows them to earn their high-school diploma and up to two years of college credit in five years — completely free.
Until recently, most programs like this were aimed at affluent, overachieving students — a way to keep them challenged and give them a head start on college work. But the goal is quite different at SandHoke, which enrolls only students whose parents do not have college degrees.
Here, and at North Carolina’s other 70 early-college schools, the goal is to keep at-risk students in school by eliminating the divide between high school and college.
“We don’t want the kids who will do well if you drop them in Timbuktu,” said Lakisha Rice, the principal. “We want the ones who need our kind of small setting.”
Once again, the MMSD and State of WI are going in the wrong direction regarding education. Much more on “Credit for non-MMSD courses.
New Jersey Gov. Christie, lawmakers propose sweeping pension, health care changes for public employees
Gov. Chris Christie and lawmakers of both parties will unveil a series of sweeping pension and benefit reforms Monday that could affect every public employee in New Jersey while saving the state billions of dollars, according to four officials with direct knowledge of the plan.
The proposals would require workers and retirees at all levels of government and local school districts to contribute to their own health care costs, ban part-time workers at the state and local levels from participating in the underfunded state pension system, cap sick leave payouts for all public employees and constitutionally require the state to fully fund its pension obligations each year.
Details of the four-bill package to be introduced Monday were provided to The Star-Ledger on the condition of anonymity because the four officials were not authorized to speak in advance.
The proposals go further than several past efforts at reining in taxpayer-funded pension and benefit costs, and if enacted would represent a major early victory for the new Republican governor and Democrats who control the state Legislature. But supporters anticipate an angry response from public employee and teachers unions that wield considerable power throughout the state — though lawmakers argue rank-and-file workers would have safer pensions than before.
Christie’s office declined to comment, as did top Democrats and Republicans involved in crafting the bills.
All sides had made their feelings clear last month, when Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) announced the upper house’s intentions to fix a system that would otherwise “go bankrupt.” Lawmakers of both parties pledged their support, with Christie saying “bipartisan action is critical to reforming a broken pension and benefits system.”
Relevant to Them
North Carolina has dropped the teaching of United States History before 1877 for its public high school students. Quite a number of U.S. History teachers have argued for years that they should have two years for the subject, but North Carolina has just dropped year one.
One argument they advance for doing this is that it will make our history “more relevant” to their students because it will be “closer” to their own lives.
The logical end of this approach will be, I suppose, to constrict the teaching of U.S. History to the latest results for American Idol.
This is just one more egregious consequence of the flight from academic knowledge in our schools.
One of the authors published in The Concord Review wrote more than 13,000 words on Anne Hutchinson, who not only lived before the student did, but even lived and died more than two centuries before 1877. How was this possible? The public high school student (who later graduated summa cum laude from Yale and won a Rhodes Scholarship) read enough about Anne Hutchinson so that her life became relevant enough to the student to let her write a long serious term paper about her.
For students who don’t read history, and don’t know any history from any other source, of course anything that happened “back then” seems not too relevant to their own lives, whether it is or not.
It is the job of the history teacher to encourage and require students to learn enough history so that what happened in the past is understood to be relevant, whether it is Roman Law, or Greek Philosophy, or the Han Dynasty, or the Glorious Revolution or our own.
If the student (and the teacher) has never read The Federalist Papers, then the whole process by which we formed a strong constitutional government will remain something of a mystery to them, and may indeed seem to be irrelevant to their own lives.
Kieran Egan quotes Bertrand Russell as saying: “the first task of education is to destroy the tyranny of the local and immediate over the child’s imagination.”
Now, the folks in North Carolina have not completely abandoned their high school history students to American Idol or to only those things that are local and immediate in North Carolina. After all, President Rutherford B. Hayes rarely appears on either local tv or MTV, so it will be a job for teachers to make Rutherfraud seem relevant to their lives. Students will indeed have to learn something about the 1870s and even the 1860s, perhaps, before that time will come to seem at all connected to their own.
But the task of academic work is not to appeal to a student’s comfortable confinement to his or her own town, friends, school, and historical time.
Academic work, most especially history, opens the student to the wonderful and terrible events and the notable human beings of the ages. To confine them to what is relevant to them before they do academic work is to attempt to shrink their awareness of the world to an unforgivable degree.
North Carolina has not done that, of course. If they had made an effort to teach United States history in two years, or perhaps, if they decided to allow only one year, many will feel that they should have chosen Year One, instead of starting with Rutherford B. Hayes. These are curricular arguments worth having.
But in no case should educators be justified in supporting academic work that requires less effort on the part of students to understand what is different from them, whether it is Cepheid variable stars, or Chinese characters, or the basics of molecular biology, or calculus, or the proceedings of an American meeting in Philadelphia in 1787.
Our job as educators is to open the whole world of learning to them, to see that they make serious efforts in it, and not to allow them to confine themselves to the ignorance with which they arrive into our care.
Easy = True How ‘cognitive fluency’ shapes what we believe, how we invest, and who will become a supermodel
Imagine that your stockbroker – or the friend who’s always giving you stock tips – called and told you he had come up with a new investment strategy. Price-to-earnings ratios, debt levels, management, competition, what the company makes, and how well it makes it, all those considerations go out the window. The new strategy is this: Invest in companies with names that are very easy to pronounce.
This would probably not strike you as a great idea. But, if recent research is to be believed, it might just be brilliant.
One of the hottest topics in psychology today is something called “cognitive fluency.” Cognitive fluency is simply a measure of how easy it is to think about something, and it turns out that people prefer things that are easy to think about to those that are hard. On the face of it, it’s a rather intuitive idea. But psychologists are only beginning to uncover the surprising extent to which fluency guides our thinking, and in situations where we have no idea it is at work.
Psychologists have determined, for example, that shares in companies with easy-to-pronounce names do indeed significantly outperform those with hard-to-pronounce names. Other studies have shown that when presenting people with a factual statement, manipulations that make the statement easier to mentally process – even totally nonsubstantive changes like writing it in a cleaner font or making it rhyme or simply repeating it – can alter people’s judgment of the truth of the statement, along with their evaluation of the intelligence of the statement’s author and their confidence in their own judgments and abilities. Similar manipulations can get subjects to be more forgiving, more adventurous, and more open about their personal shortcomings.
The misguided race to federalize education
David Davenport, Gordon Lloyd:
President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan call their $4 billion program of education reform grants the Race to the Top. A more accurate title would be the Race to Washington, because their program culminates a stunning decade in which school policy decisions have been wrested from local and state control to become matters of federal oversight. With the possible exception of Texas – where Gov. Rick Perry is resisting federal education grants with all their strings – no state has been left behind in the race to federalize education.
It’s easy to miss this important power shift because few of us notice, much less worry about, constitutional processes during a crisis. But, as presidential Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel famously said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste” because, he continued, it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before. And that’s precisely what is happening in education as we complete a transfer of money and power to Washington to oversee our schools, in violation of the 10th Amendment, a couple of hundred years of history and common sense.
There is a disturbing pattern of Washington using crises to consolidate power. First we declare war on a problem, which shifts things into crisis mode. Remember the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on illiteracy, the war on terror? Now we have a war on underperforming schools, so naturally Washington needs to step in and nationalize standards and tests.
Divided Attention: In an age of classroom multitasking, scholars probe the nature of learning and memory
Imagine that driving across town, you’ve fallen into a reverie, meditating on lost loves or calculating your next tax payments. You’re so distracted that you rear-end the car in front of you at 10 miles an hour. You probably think: Damn. My fault. My mind just wasn’t there.
By contrast, imagine that you drive across town in a state of mild exhilaration, multitasking on your way to a sales meeting. You’re drinking coffee and talking to your boss on a cellphone, practicing your pitch. You cause an identical accident. You’ve heard all the warnings about cellphones and driving–but on a gut level, this wreck might bewilder you in a way that the first scenario didn’t. Wasn’t I operating at peak alertness just then? Your brain had been aroused to perform several tasks, and you had an illusory sense that you must be performing them well.
That illusion of competence is one of the things that worry scholars who study attention, cognition, and the classroom. Students’ minds have been wandering since the dawn of education. But until recently–so the worry goes–students at least knew when they had checked out. A student today who moves his attention rapid-fire from text-messaging to the lecture to Facebook to note-taking and back again may walk away from the class feeling buzzed and alert, with a sense that he has absorbed much more of the lesson than he actually has.
An Oasis of Calm, for Young People That Need It
OF all the supplies at Haven Academy, a charter school in the South Bronx, none matter as much as the squishy. Like any elementary school, Haven has pencils, books and desks. But it is the squishy — a colorful rubber ball with dozens of tentacles that can withstand the strength of any young student — that daily absorbs a fit of anger or a mess of tears.
In the office of Jessica Nauiokas, the principal, a forlorn little boy yanks at a squishy and an angry little girl tosses one like a yo-yo. When Marquis, 6, was kicking and screaming one recent morning, a purple squishy was the only thing that could calm him.
Marquis, a kindergartner, had grown so frustrated with reading that he crawled under a table while other students wrote their alphabet letters; then he threw a chair across the room. Gabriella Cassandra, the school’s social worker, literally carried him to the principal’s office, where he again crawled under a chair.
New Chef Will Help Pastry Level to Rise
New Chef Will Help Pastry Level to Rise
Restaurants like Charlie Trotter’s, Tru and Per Se all have alumni of the French Pastry School in their kitchens.
Chicago has long attracted ambitious immigrants from all corners of the world. World champion bakers from tiny Alsatian villages are not usually among them.
Pierre Zimmermann may well be the first when he arrives in August to join the faculty of Chicago’s French Pastry School. Mr. Zimmermann stands out in the tightly-knit and highly competitive international baking scene as the latest in four generations of his family who have run a boulangerie-patisserie in Schnersheim.
Mr. Zimmermann, 45, won the World Cup of Baking as a member of France’s gold medal team at the 1996 Coupe du Monde de laBoulangerie and coached France’s 2008 World Cup of Baking championship team.
The pedigree, and Mr. Zimmermann’s deft touch with a baguette, made him such an attraction that the Loop school pursued him for four years.
That he chose to give up his job as “the little baker of my village,” as he put it in a recent e-mail translated from French, is a testament to Chicago’s importance among food cognoscenti and the French Pastry School’s growing reputation.
Ohio State President Challenges Faculty Tenure
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The leader of the country’s largest university thinks it’s time to re-examine how professors are awarded tenure, a type of job-for-life protection virtually unknown outside academia.
Ohio State University President Gordon Gee says the traditional formula that rewards publishing in scholarly journals over excellence in teaching and other contributions is outdated and too often favors the quantity of a professor’s output over quality.
“Someone should gain recognition at the university for writing the great American novel or for discovering the cure for cancer,” he told The Associated Press. “In a very complex world, you can no longer expect everyone to be great at everything.”
Plenty of people have raised the issue over the years, but Gee is one of the few American college presidents with the reputation and political prowess — not to mention the golden touch at fundraising — who might be able to begin the transformation.
Still, some professors are already skeptical.
More on the Successful Seattle Lawsuit against Discovering Math
Decision favors plaintiffs in court challenge of Seattle math text adoption
Statement from Laurie Rogers:
Last year, Seattle Public Schools adopted the Discovering math series despite valiant opposition from parents and math professionals, despite poor assessments of the Discovering series’ rigor and adherence to the new state math standards, and despite the fact that OSPI did NOT ultimately recommend the Discovering math series.
In response, three people filed a lawsuit, saying that Seattle didn’t have sufficient supporting evidence for its adoption, and also that the Discovering series was associated with an INCREASE in achievement gaps.
Recently, a judge agreed with the plaintiffs and – while stopping short of telling Seattle to cease and desist in their adoption – told Seattle to revisit its adoption. The district can continue to use the Discovering series, and Seattle administrators have stated their clear intention to do so.
Nevertheless, the court decision is momentous. It sets a precedent for districts across the country. When board members can’t justify their adoption decisions, the people now have legal recourse.
When Did They Stop Calling it Detention?
The Players – in the Milwaukee Public Schools’ Governance Battle
You can bet that the state Department of Public Instruction won’t carry out its threat to withhold a bazillion dollars from Milwaukee Public Schools because MPS is not showing as much urgency as desired about making changes. (What in the world would make DPI think that?)
That doesn’t mean the threat is not an important matter and that it isn’t part of developments that could have a real impact. DPI leaders might be able to turn this into a way to force MPS to take more energetic steps, especially around special education and struggling students of all kinds.
The fact that DPI has the power to make a threat like this illustrates forcefully the changing picture of power when it comes to MPS. In fact, assuming a contract is signed in the next few days with Gregory Thornton, the School Board’s choice to be the new MPS superintendent, he will be only one of a roster of chief executives over aspects of Milwaukee schools, as I see it.
Here’s a guide to some of the folks at the center of the action these days:
The best way to guide your teenager through the high-risk years.
Our last article summarized the current state of research on teens and risk. That research demonstrates that teenagers do not suffer from some special inability to reason. Larry Steinberg and other researchers explain the steep rise in risk-taking behavior that comes with puberty by elaborating the interplay between two brain systems. The social-emotional system, which develops robustly in early adolescence, seeks out rewarding experiences, especially the sensation afforded by novel and risky behavior, and is also activated by the presence of peers. The cognitive-control system, which undergoes its great burst of development in later adolescence, evaluates and governs the impulses of the social-emotional system.
During the years of greatest risk-taking, which peak somewhere around the age of 16 and during which the presence of peers greatly increases risk-taking, the adolescent brain is like a car with a powerful accelerator (the sensation- and peer-seeking social-emotional system) and weak brakes (the risk-containing cognitive-control system). That being the case, it’s clear why some common approaches to reducing risk-taking by teenagers–explaining why drunk driving is dangerous, asking them to pledge to abstain from premarital sex–don’t work very well.
Chandler schools limit recruitment to science, math, special ed teachers
The outlook for new teachers is dim this year, prompting Chandler school officials to limit their recruiting efforts to science, math and special-education teachers for the first time.
Although other teachers are not being turned away, the Chandler Unified School Districts is focusing on hard-to-fill science, math and special-education teaching jobs for its Feb. 18 recruiting fair.
“This is our first year . . . . . we’re not having a general recruitment fair because of there are fewer needs, fewer positions openings than in the past,” said Laura Nook, the district’s human-resources director.
The district doesn’t yet know how many new teachers it will need next school year. Demand depends on student enrollment, the number of returning teachers and whether the Arizona Legislature again cuts K-12 funding to balance the state budget.
Facebookgate, the 2010 edition
Admissions officers more than a year ago started noticing something odd about the Facebook groups built around their incoming classes: The creators weren’t newly admitted students. Or current students. Or alums. Or anyone with any tie to the universities.
Brad J. Ward, who then worked in the Butler University admissions office, began to compare the groups from colleges across the country — including Georgetown, Virginia Tech and George Washington University — and realized they were all created by the same handful of people. “There’s something going down on Facebook. Pay attention,” he wrote on his blog, Squared Peg, in December 2008
With help from admissions workers across the country, Ward traced these individuals to College Prowler, a Pittsburgh-based company that publishes campus guidebooks, and a not-yet-launched roommate-matching Web site called MatchU, started by a recent college graduate named Justin Gaither.
Judge holds Washington Legislature to the promise of education funding reform
A King County Superior Court judge today ruled the state does not provide ample funding for basic education then directed the Legislature to establish the cost of providing all Washington children with a basic education and establish how it will fully fund such education with stable and dependable state sources.
In his oral ruling this morning in McCleary v. State, also known as the “Basic Education case,” King County Superior Court Judge John Erlick also indicated the state’s 2009 education funding measure (HB 2261) could be a means to satisfy this direction. The court e-mailed the entire 73-page ruling to counsel immediately following the hearing.
“Judge Erlick rightly recognizes in his ruling the Legislature’s authority to set education funding policy,” said Attorney General Rob McKenna. “The Legislature took positive steps with its 2009 education funding reform efforts, and we understand the decision to suggest those reforms could be the basis for progress in this case.
Professor heads for the Hill to promote science education
Influencing practice and policy in science education is what drives ASU’s Julie Luft and has led to her distinguished service to K-12 science teacher education and renowned research contributions to the field. She considers her recent call from Congress to testify about the status and future of science education to be among her most notable achievements.
Luft delivered her first-time testimony before the House Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee at the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) Education Hearings that took place Feb. 3-4. She was joined by Craig Strang, associate director of the Lawrence Hall of Science at University of California-Berkeley.
The purpose of the hearing was to inform Congressional subcommittee members about the status and future direction of STEM education in the K-12 sector. STEM education is considered vital to maintaining the United States’ leadership in the rapidly advancing world of science and technology. In her testimony, Luft emphasized the importance of inquiry in teacher education and professional development, and the need for more federal funding to support science organizations involved in research and development. She also stressed the unintended consequences of the federal No Child Left Behind legislation, which has limited the amount of inquiry-based instruction in K-12 science classrooms.
Ever wondered why your friends seem so much more popular than you are? There’s a reason for that
This is going to be awkward, but someone has to tell you, so it may as well be me: you’re kind of a loser. You know that feeling you sometimes have that your friends have more friends than you? You’re right. They do. And you know how almost everyone at the gym seems in better shape than you, and how everyone at your book club seems better read? Well, they are. If you’re single, it’s probably a while since you dated – what with you being such a loser – but when you did, do you recall thinking the other person was more romantically experienced than you? I’m afraid it was probably true.
The only consolation in all this is that it’s nothing personal: it’s a bizarre statistical fact that almost all of us have fewer friends than our friends, more flab than our fellow gym-goers, and so on. In other words, you’re a loser, but it’s not your fault: it’s just maths. (I mean, it’s probably just maths. You might be a catastrophic failure as a human being, for all I know. But let’s focus on the maths.)
To anyone not steeped in statistics, this seems crazy. Friendship is a two-way street, so you’d assume things would average out: any given person would be as likely to be more popular than their friends as less. But as the sociologist Scott Feld showed, in a 1991 paper bluntly entitled Why Your Friends Have More Friends Than You Do, this isn’t true. If you list all your friends, and then ask them all how many friends they have, their average is very likely to be higher than your friend count.
Should Extra-Curricular Fine Arts Teachers be Paid the Same as Sports Coaches?
Last week the Capital Times ran a story about how Tom Hardin, the head coach of forensics and drama at James Madison Memorial High School, plans to retire from coaching at the end of the season. There was even a follow up blog by the Capitol Times reacting to the discussion of the story.
As an assistant coach for Memorial forensics and debate program for several years, I read the paper and the comments in the online version with a more critical eye than others. It’s worthwhile to point out that I am extremely biased on this issue. Tom Hardin and Tim Scheffler taught me how to be a speech and debate coach and gave me a job that supported me throughout my post secondary education.
My responses to the news and comments are as follows:
